Available starting September 1 for $50, the 677-piece set includes a booklet about MacLane and the Pixar film. And instead of recycling the box it comes in, you can crumple it up into a ball of garbage, toss it on the floor, and give your WALL•E more purpose than just a decoration for your home office. Here’s the official description:
Build, display and role play with WALL•E! Construct the LEGO® Ideas version of WALL•E with posable neck, adjustable head and arms, gripping hands, opening trunk and rolling tracks.
Build a beautifully detailed LEGO® version of WALL•E—the last robot left on Earth! Created by Angus MacLane, an animator and director at Pixar Animation Studios, and selected by LEGO Ideas members, the development of this model began alongside the making of the lovable animated character for the classic Pixar feature film. It has taken almost a decade to perfect the LEGO version, which incorporates many authentic WALL•E characteristics, including a posable neck, adjustable head, arms that move up and down and side to side, plus gripping hands and rolling tracks. With a trunk that opens and closes, you can tidy up the planet one pile of garbage at a time! This set also includes a booklet about the designer and the animated Pixar movie.
When you’re stuck in a job you hate, it’s easy to read a few articles about pursuing your dreams and find the validation you were looking for to turn in your resignation letter. But what feels like a terrible job may not be permanently terrible—in certain situations, it may be worth your while to try to fix your job, rather than jump ship.
You’ve surely seen the articles floating around the web that list signs that you should quit your job immediately (and if you haven’t, you can read them here, here, and here). Now, there are certainly situations that warrant quitting, and plenty of people are stuck in jobs they hate, when they clearly should be looking for something better.
But sometimes you should focus your energy on improving your current position instead of heading off into the unknown. How can you tell if you may be able to make your current job work? Look for the signs below.
1. You’re Surrounding Yourself With Negativity
If you constantly feel frustrated with your boss, your responsibilities, your co-workers, and the company in general, look to the company you keep at work. Are you grumbling with your colleagues over lunch? Do you spend your breaks tracking down the latest gossip about who got the promotion you wanted and who got invited to lunch by the department manager?
Instead, try focusing on what’s great about your job. Instead of complaining about a missed promotion, work on documenting your achievementsso you can present a better case for yourself next time. Talk to your colleagues about an exciting project you’re working on, rather than venting about the menial task your boss asked you to do.
Can positive thinking solve everything? Not by a long shot. But by attempting to change your mindset, you’ll have a clearer idea of whether the problem is your job—or the way you think about your job.http://ift.tt/1hCWAAv…
2. You Haven’t Created a Plan for Movement
There’s nothing worse than feeling stuck at a job with no foreseeable possibility of advancement. It seems pretty obvious that if there’s no room to grow, it’s time to move on to something different.
But is the issue really that there isn’t room to grow—or that you haven’t proactively collaborated with your boss or HR to determine how to get to the place you want to be?
Maybe, for example, you want to move into a management role within your department, but you keep getting bypassed for promotions. No room for movement, right? Well, probably not unless you work with your boss to identify what you need to do and what skills you need to develop in order to snag the next available promotion.
Or, maybe you need to work with HR to determine if there’s an internal move you could make that would help you better achieve your goals—like moving from the sales team to the sales training team, where you could start putting some management skills to use.
Let’s be honest: Working an endless stream of 40-plus hour weeks with no break could make anyone want to quit their job. And so, if it’s been a while since your last vacation, the problem may not be that you need to quit your job entirely—but that you need a break from the office to recharge.
Done right—meaning, with as little email-checking as possible—a vacation can help you feel less stressed and more effective at work. And could even give you an entirely new perspective of your current position.
Taking advantage of those unused vacation days to take a break from your job can help you come back with more clarity: Did you just need a few days off? Or do you need a permanent break from your job?http://ift.tt/1WpUW5j…
4. You Haven’t Voiced Your Concerns to Your Boss
Maybe some of the aspects of your job truly are unbearable—e.g., you don’t like your assigned responsibilities, you can’t stand working with your project team, and your workload is so heavy that you’re constantly staying late and working on the weekend.
But unless you’ve actually talked to your boss about these things, you have no idea whether they’re facets of your job that are set in stone, or whether you may actually be able to change your situation.
By simply voicing your concerns to your boss, you may be able to shift your workload, focus your time on different priorities or projects, or transition onto a different project team. Essentially, you may be able to make your current job a whole lot better—without having to polish up your resume.
Before you brush off your resume and cover letter and delve into a job search, it’s worth it to see if your current job can be salvaged. Sometimes, changing your mindset and advocating for yourself can make all the difference.
Katie Douthwaite Wolf’s career and management content has been published on Forbes, Mashable, Business Insider, Inc., and Newsweek. Find her on Twitter.
Hillary Clinton agreed to turn over her private email server to the FBI Wednesday after it was alleged that emails sent over her personal account could be compromised outside the possession of the government. Here are some of the contents of Clinton’s emails that have been inspected thus far:
2016 fundraising email sent out at 11 p.m. on Nov. 4, 2008
Rarely included hyphen when typing “cover-up”
200 unread emails from John Kerry
Reminder sent to White House staff on Dec. 14, 2011 that unmarked turkey sandwich in fridge is hers
16-year-long friendly email exchange with Linda Tripp
Heated back-and-forth with graphic designer about which direction arrow in campaign logo should point
8 different terse emails to Obama found in drafts folder
Not one email sent during 72 hours following Benghazi attack
Email sent to herself on Aug. 11, 2015 warning whoever reads it that nothing is going …
The Perseids is my favorite meteor shower of the year, and this year is likely to be the best one in recent memory. Here’s when, where, and how to watch it—and just what is going to make this year so spectacular.
Top image: 2010 Perseids / image courtesy of Michael Menefee.
What Are the Perseids?
The Perseids are an annual meteor shower that greets us at the end of each summer. We’ve actually been seeing a few Perseids scattered around the sky since early last month, but the bulk of them will spill over into the sky tonight and tomorrow night. But if the Perseids are just one meteor shower out of several a year, what is it that makes it the absolute best?
Part of it is timing. Some astronomers will try to convince you of the superiority of cold-weather meteor showers, mumble-lying something (usually through chattering teeth) about “clarity” and “crispness.” Don’t be fooled: Summer meteor showers are absolutely where it’s at, and the Perseids peaks at exactly the right moment of the season, just as summer is winding down, but well before any sort of cold snap has fully hit.
But even more than the season, the Perseids appeal is really all about the fireballs.
Image: 2012 Perseids over Wyoming’s Snowy Range / David Kingham.
Comet Swift-Tuttle is responsible for the Perseids—the dust and ice from its trail is what we’re watching burn up in our atmosphere when we see meteors. Swift-Tuttle orbits Earth every 133 years and the closer it is to us, the thicker that trail—and the Perseids that we see here below—becomes. The comet is not due to come closest to us again until 2126, but that still leaves a pretty thick cover for us to see this year, with NASA estimating rates of at up to 100 meteors visible per hour.
Image: 2010 Perseids: Yes, they really are that bright / David Kingham,
The number of fireballs that you see during the Perseids simply blows every other meteor shower out of the water. It has more on average than every other meteor shower combined, excepting the Geminds and the Orionids.
Even the Geminids, the only shower that comes close in number, just doesn’t touch the Perseids in terms of brightness. The Perseids are simply the biggest, baddest, and brightest meteor shower around.
Okay, but why is this year so special, then?
So, if the Perseids are pretty active every year, what makes this year exciting? Well, it’s more about what we’re not getting, than what we are. That’s right, I’m talking about our old enemy, the moon.
Image: The moon’s phases for all of 2015 timelapsed / NASA.
The new moon actually falls on August 13th, but the moonlight tonight from the almost completely waning crescent should also be pretty much negligible, meaning that for the two nights when the Perseids will be falling the thickest, we’ll have almost complete darkness against which to watch.
Image: 2010 Perseids / Fred Bruenjes via NASA.
Of course, moonlight isn’t the only enemy of the meteor shower: There’s also cloud cover. But even that is looking likely to be not much of a problem for most areas this year, with the weather looking relatively clear around the country.
When (and where in the sky) can I see the Perseids?
At a rate of over 100 Perseids per an hour, simply looking up should be enough to see at least a few. The majority of them, though, will be clustered around the top of the constellation Perseus. If you’re having trouble tracking that, look for Cassiopeia first, Persesus is below it, and the radiant—the spot where the meteors appear to branch out from—should hover somewhere right between the two:
Image: International Meteor Organization.
As for timing, you’ll see a few as soon as it gets dark but things will start to really heat up at around midnight. From then, you’ll have all night until the dawn to catch the show.
Okay! I’m in. So, how do I get ready to watch this thing?
Let’s get this out of the way: This particular meteor shower is going to be bright enough and bold enough that even a quick trip to your own backyard or rooftop is likely to yield at least something to be seen. But with just a bit of time and preparation, we can do far, far better. So let’s do it.
Where do I watch it?
The first thing you’re going to want to do is pick out a place to watch from. Make sure you drive out far enough that you’re out of range not just of the light, but of anything—whether buildings or trees—that’s going to get between you and your view of the sky. Keep an eye on the terrain around you, both natural and human-made, and try and get yourself to some higher ground, particularly those of you reading us from out in the mountains.
Image: Star trails from the 2013 shower at the Mount Lemonn Sky Center, Adam Block / University of Arizona.
If you want, you can connect with a local astronomy group, many of whom are planning group events this week. Not only will they know the good spots near you to set up camp, there will also likely be plenty of telescopes, binoculars, and cleverly-aimed cameras among the crowd to get a closer look at what you’re seeing.
But really, there’s no need to overthink it: a blanket spread out in the grass, any likely-looking patch of dark sky, and nothing but your own eyes will also do you just fine.
You don’t really need much, but there’s a few things you may want. You (wisely) chose to check out a summer meteor shower, but a light jacket isn’t a bad thing to have on hand—you may be out there for quite some time and it can get cooler around dawn. Similarly, some water, snacks, bug spray, and a blanket or two will probably be appreciated at some point in the night. I also have an old star wheel I like to bring, for ease of constellation tracking. But there are plenty of good apps as well that will get the job done as well (Sky Map is my personal choice). Just make sure you’ve downloaded your star map app of choice to your phone before you head out.
Image: GIF made via footage from NASA.
Some people will also tell you that this is a good time to break out the camping chairs. Those people are wrong and possibly seeking some kind of obscure and elaborate revenge against for you for murky reasons. Keep an eye on them, and then remember that you’re going to be tilting your head upwards for hours, possibly from midnight clear up until dawn. So make it easy on yourself and your neck: reclining chairs, a lie-down on that blanket you brought, even the hood of your car will all do quite nicely for our purposes.
Ugh, it’s cloudy/my car broke down/I’m trapped in a submarine. Why is everything the worst?
Why, indeed? But, cheer up, friend! It’s meteor shower day, the most wonderful day of the year. And, even if you can’t see it yourself, you can still share it with the rest of us through these sites:
If you’re in the mood for something a little different, you can also opt to listen to the meteor shower as well, or to be more accurate the sounds of the meteors echoing against our radar. Pair it with your own IRL skyview—it’s delightfully eerie.
Bolt action rifles were the mainstays of armies across the globe for nearly over half a century, and today we pick what we believe to be the five best ever fielded. The list factors in effectiveness, fun factor, historical significance, and ease of use. All five of these guns are fantastic, and we recommend you get […]
Cracked has taken the time to dump on car dealers and basically the entire process of buying a new car because, hey, it kinda sucks. Here’s what your local dealer’s commercials might look like if they were “honest,” had better lighting, and Steve Buscemi’s stunt double(?) as a spokesman.
It’s a “funny because it’s true” kind of thing, and “sad because… it’s true.” Though I’m sure a handful of you will rise to the defense of our nation’s illustrious car dealerships. Where else would we go to get our imported economy cars serviced?
Will they be able to sneak a penis joke in there? Stick through to 02:40 to find out! Also, yes. They will.
American politicians, you’d better step up your game. This campaign ad from Canadian politician Wyatt Scott—featuring dragons, giant geese, robots, laser eyes and much, much more—is the new gold standard in campaign advertising.